Bukit Hijau Waterfall, Kedah

...a.k.a my pathetic first attempt at waterfall photography T_T~

what i wanted to achieve was shots of the waterfall with the water appearing flowy, soft, ethereal, silky kinda look... and i know i need slow shutter speed to achieve that. but... i went with ISO 80 (lowest ISO on my cam), f8.0 aperture (smallest available), stepping back the exposure compensation at -2ev, yet the slowest shutter speed that i can achieve is 1/8 second at some shady spots. any slower, the pictures are wayyy over-exposed to be of any use. sigh...

maybe i should've came earlier in the morning, while there's not much light yet. or maybe that's the limitation of a compact point & shoot camera. sigh...

anyway, on to the photos. most are taken with Shutter Priority AE, resized to 800x600 and added watermarks. no cropping is done, point being that i want to learn to compose my photos using photography skills rather that relying on photoshop/post-processing to create attractive compositions, even though it means discarding otherwise perfectly usable shots that can turn out great with some trimmings.

bukit hijau waterfall is actually a multi-level waterfall. there are 3 vertical falls, while the rest are cascades. One of the vertical falls is very steep and is not accessible; you'll pass it on the way towards the top.

there are cemented walkways skirting the falls to make it easy for visitors to move around. however, be careful. the steps are covered with moss and can be slippery especially after rain. a few bridges are built for crossing the falls at several strategic locations.

the paved walkway ends at the highest fall. there is a dam further up, but reaching there entails going through a forest trail. i chose not to go further as i wasn't exactly equipped for a hike (slippers :p)

this is actually my second visit here. the first time here, i did not own a camera yet, and today's trip is purposefully for photo-taking ^_^. compared with the previous visit, there's much less water flowing thru the falls today, likely due to less rainfalls recently.

how to get here: from kulim town, head towards kulim hi-tech park. if you pass kulim hospital on you right, you're on the right way. head on straight and watch out for the signboards telling you where to turn next. don't worry, there are plenty of them :) there are two types of signboards to watch out for: large, brown colored ones, and smaller white ones with green borders and letterings, with "Hutan Lipur Bukit Hijau" written on them. It's around 30-40 km from kulim town, passing thru oil palm plantations.